The Archdiocese of Newark has been hit with a lawsuit accusing it of short-changing a hospital pension plan by $2.7 million.

The suit was filed May 7 in Superior Court of New Jersey in Essex County on behalf of a class of retirees from Archdiocese-run hospitals whose pension checks ran out in 2017. The suit takes a new approach in the first-suit-of-its-kind lawsuit after the Supreme Court ruled in June 2017 that retirement plans of religious-affiliated nonprofit organizations are exempt from the regulations of federal pension law. Unlike other suits brought of behalf of retirees in pension plans tied to religious organizations, which relied on federal law, the Archdiocese of Newark suit only brings state-law claims.